DMEA: Angola plans for 31% increase in LPG demand

Angolan state-owned gas company Sonagas has announced that it expects LPG demand to increase by 31% in the country from 2024 to 2027.

Angola’s LPG demand previously grew from 447,000 tonnes per year to around 472,000 tonnes per year between 2022 and 2023 – an increase of 5.59%. 60% of this growth was recorded to have occurred in urban areas, according to news outlet Energy Capital & Power.

Sonagas continued to highlight that increased LPG demand would mostly be seen in Angola’s industrial sector, with largest consumers including local steel mills, pulp and paper manufacturers and ceramics. In a bid to beat these predictions, Songas is currently constructing a 60,300 tonne storage facility as part of the Bande terminal project in Bengo province.

Notably, Angola’s largest LPG producers – outputting the largest amounts of butane – include Chevron’s Sanha gas processing complex (19%), Malongo refinery (3%), and the government-run Luanda refinery (5%).

The country’s push to introduce more LPG into homes and industries was properly put into action at the start of September this year, when it invested in the delivery of more LPG for cooking and encouraged the take-up of the gas in the industrial sector for use in drying processes and furnaces.

The main issue preventing Angolan plans for rapid LPG growth, however, lie in the country’s poor roads on which distribution trucks must travel. These roads move into the country from Soyo and four dedicated carriers at coastal terminals in Luanda – the main port of Namibe province.

When looking at Angola’s ability to store the fuel, Argus reported that provinces including Benguela, Luanda and Namibe contained the vast majority of the country’s onshore storage capacity at 12,000 tonnes. Additional options lie with Angola’s floating strategic reserve which is able to hold 55,000 tonnes.

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